Spalling Again

When four restorers from Straulino Restoration came to work on the interior of the Parroquia de la Purisima Concepcion, they stayed at the Elizabeth Nuzom house. Every day, they woke up in the morning and walked 50 feet to the church...just across the street. As soon as the walked out the door of the Nuzom house, they saw the column in the photo above. The old stone base is repaired with cement, which expands and contracts at a greater rate than the softer stone, eventually damaging the stone. You see it all over town, like this, just a few steps further: Then they crossed the street and came to the beautiful old retaining wall that surrounds the church that was ruined a few years ago by repairs with portland cement. A staircase leads up to the church. In the photo above you can see really clumsy repairs done with cement, which will accelerate the disintegration of the retaining wall.

Walking towards the wall of the church, they saw this each morning:

Note the cement repairs at the bottom of the photo above. That will cause spalling. The exterior restorers are sure to remove the cement. Restorers treat cement like the bubonic plague.Then they came to this, above. These are cement repairs done a few years ago that have already caused spalling.

Sometimes they walked the other way around, and they saw this, a cement repair on the old brick sidewalk, below:

Then they came up this staircase. You can see the aesthetic damage done to the old retaining wall. It will disintegrate sooner too.

Either way they walked, they eventually entered this door, to begin their day of work on the altar:

Note the very ugly and destructive cement repairs to the sides of the door, down low. The exterior restorers will dig them out, I hope.

Not only did the restorers walk in this door each weekday morning for 6 months, they walked into it several times a day after walking back to the Nuzom house to use the restroom, have lunch or a snack, or to use the telephone. Often, when they went back to work, they did the right thing. They annihilated every trace of cement they could find on the altar.

I talked to Noel, the supervisor. I don't think he really had any idea of the potential positive impact an outside expert like he could have on the conservation of heritage in town other than the church. The builders here are quite stubborn, but an expert from Queretaro might convince them. I pointed out the damage to him, and indicated that this sort of thing can be seen all over town. A few days later, he said, you know, Daan, you have a point.